lenten compassion (on Ukraine)

To hear Brandi read the essay instead, click here: https://youtu.be/KsdKNSJ9W0Q

Volodymyr Zelensky is trying to save his country. This weekend he spoke directly to Israeli lawmakers, and begged them to intervene on Ukraine’s behalf. Israel, among other nations, has been brokering a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. In the nine minute speech, he asked a question that haunts me in an age where many American Christians live as if it is holy to ignore the pain of others: “Mediating without taking sides? You can mediate—but not between good and evil.”

Zelensky has a word for all of us. Many of us were rightly raised to compromise, to find middle ground, to keep the peace whenever possible. While these actions can create communities of belonging, they also provide cover for evil, destructive behavior.  When we confuse peacemaking with peace keeping, we ignore abusers and call it healthy. For anyone who wants to follow Christ, mediating is necessary. We should do all we can take can to promote peace around us. However, there are times when calling for peace or health in a community requires calling out those who block access to peace and health for all. To not specifically name neglect or abuse—wherever it may be found—is to call the status quo good, ignoring the lives of hurting people.

Zelensky’s words hoped to remind Israel of how ugly evil becomes when people choose to look away. Hitler openly demonized Jews and others for most of his rise to power while the majority of the world acted as if apathy, or both sidesing, or handwringing passivity, or not-my-probleming were appropriate responses. When people with power keep the peace instead of actively making peace by speaking up in precise ways, vulnerable people get damaged.

This week our readings remind us that God’s word points us to a Beloved Community that actively values compassion. In this kin-dom, we trust that God takes our pain seriously, asking us to do the same. In the community of God, we can’t expect for ourselves what we won’t also claim for others. I’m not okay if you’re not okay, because we are tied together, bound by both our shared humanity and divinity. This week’s readings remind us that apathy is not a spiritual gift, that staying-out-of-it is not the way of Christ.

I hope you have time to think about how costly love and compassion often are this week. We expect it for ourselves, and there is an invitation here to imagine how we might offer it to each other. When God claims us, God invites us to belong to the Beloved Community in a way that wraps us up in the healing of each other. What a beautiful thing, to belong to each other.

Week Four:  We belong to God and each other

“Isaiah was not rejected simply because he told Israel to worship Yahweh. He was rejected because Isaiah realized that true worship of Yahweh had implications for how one treated their neighbor.”                                                                                                                                  –Esau McCaulley

“But how sobering, that I can bring forth out of my thought-world into the external world either that which leads to life, or that which produces death in other men…we must understand that the reality of communion with God, and loving God, must take place in the inward self.”                               -Francis Shaeffer

 “Contemplative prayer deepens us in the knowledge that we are already free, that we have already found a place to dwell, that we already belong to God, even though everyone and everything around us keep suggesting the opposite.”                                                                                      -Henri Nouwen

3/23 Ps 103; 131

3/24 Isaiah 43:1-7

3/25 Ps 1:1-3; 23

3/26 Habb 3:17-19

3/27 Luke 9:46-48

3/28 Ps 106:1-8

3/29 Eccles 3:1-8; Ps 13

lent and basketball

To hear Brandi read the essay instead, click here: https://youtu.be/m2QeBJ62oZs

It is the third week of Lent, and the first week of the NCAA Basketball tournament. It might seem random to slide these two facts into one sentence, but I’m just tryin’ to keep it real out here in American Christendom. We feel the ache of sacrifice during Lent, and we are giddy with the indulgence of wall-to-wall athletic awesome coming our way. Can I get a witness?

This week’s readings and scriptures speak to another combination that may seem strange to some: Lament and Hope. If you have suffered much then you know these two actions are inextricably linked. If you have not, you might think that hope is the fruit of faith, while lament is unfaithful whining. Anyone familiar with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, or of Miriam, Rahab and Mary, knows that hope for God’s presence and provision is baked into knowing God. Hope abounds, and the Gospel work of Jesus fulfills the scriptures and the Jewish people’s longing for rescue. They—like us—begged for God’s unending mercy to manifest itself through God’s justice and transformation. Hope, for the Christ follower, is obvious.

Not so much with lament. I was carried, pushed and led into the church every time the doors opened for my entire childhood. Since then I have learned to root into church communities by gathering with God’s people regularly. It was not until I found welcome in Black churches that I learned of lament as a gift of God. We are all biased, and our theologies and faith-talking reflect those biases. Sitting under Black preachers and leaders taught me of the belonging God offers through lament. The Jewish people knew much of grief, of hope deferred, of senseless and communal pain. When I faced my own soul-crushing grief, the invitation to grieve and lament welcomed me into intimacy with others who hurt, and taught me another way to access hope.

Our life with God is not linear. Many of us don’t come to faith, treasure the promises of God, and then find easy hope for all our days. Some of us abide in Christ and then wonder why God forsakes us, all in the same day. Lament allows us to honestly name the hurt we have done and the hurt done to us. It allows us to name the ways we hope for God and to name the ways we feel abandoned by God. As we tell the truth and cry out in pain, we sometimes find hope. Faith is not linear, but cyclical, coming and going, in hope and lament, as we are gathered by our Maker and carried along in this life.

This week as you think about hope and lament, I pray you will find the courage to name all the things that run through you when you hurt. God created your whole self and God certainly welcomes your whole self. This brings me back to basketball.

My longest, deepest friend is married to a college basketball coach. Their team just made it to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history. As I celebrate their incredible accomplishment, I think of all the pain and work it took to get the team to the Dance. The coach is not just a coach to his players, but cares for them as if their whole lives matter deeply to him. He does not treat them as machines who live and die by basketball, but makes it clear that every part of them can show up every time they interact. These players we idolize are college kids figuring out how to be whole people in the world. In a very tangible way, he honors their humanity, and welcomes them to name and bring the hard and the good that they face. Because he has called every part of them significant, his players have transformed, together, into hopeful young men who belong together (and played an incredible season of basketball).

Basketball is just basketball, but there is some divine truth floating in this story. Transformation does not come when we train ourselves to deny or ignore the hard in our lives. God does not reward the stoic with more hope, but promises to move toward those who hurt, every single time. Your lament honors your story, and God responds as if it is costly praise. Explore your lament, and know all the parts of you matter deeply to God.

Week Three: Lament and Hope, together

“To only have a theology of celebration at the cost of the theology of suffering is incomplete. The intersection of the two threads provides the opportunity to engage in the fullness of the gospel message. Lament and praise must go hand in hand.”                                        -Soong Chan Rah

“Peacemaking cannot be separated from truth telling.”                        –Esau McCaulley

“Laying down your life means making your own faith and doubt, hope and despair, joy and sadness, courage and fear available to others as ways of getting in touch with the Lord of life.” –Henri Nouwen

3/16 Job 42:1-3

3/17 Isaiah 40:21-31

3/18 Ps 142

3/19 Hosea 5:15-6:3

3/20 Luke 18:35-43

3/21 Ps 143:5-10

3/22 Ps 25:4-18; 19:7-14

transformation is uncomfortable: thoughts on lent

To hear Dr. Kellett read this essay, click here: https://youtu.be/kN0vPK-npYc

My kids go to a school that shares a founding sentiment that a complete education must address the whole child in order to teach kids to thrive in a diverse world. They share my belief that our segregated city separates us, preventing our chance to learn from each other. Sharing spaces with different others might not happen often in Nashville, but finding comfort in diverse groups will happen if we regularly seek out those kinds of spaces. Learning to hold on to you when you feel alone in a place is hard work. It can be uncomfortable in lots of ways. But it is worth it.

Because their school knows how hard it can be, they believe that creating a place where lots of different kids interact is not enough. Kids have to be taught how to reach across lines of difference. They have to be taught how to notice their bodies when they feel threatened or defensive or isolated. They have to be taught how to notice and appreciate the differences in their habits and someone else’s normal. When we notice our response to difference, we begin expanding our comfort with discomfort. When we become comfortable with unease, we increase our ability to grow, to build durable relationships, and to collaborate with others to make meaning out of our experiences.

I think of Lent the way I think of entering a new place where I feel uneasy and alone. During Lent, what feels normal or even good begins to change, and I learn to imagine a different way of being in the world. I want to slow down in a world that forces me to move quickly. I want to be in a life that values those who do. I want to ponder in a world that celebrates production. I want to confess among people who cover up their faults. I feel uncomfortable as I notice the tension in my body, torn between different ways of ordering my steps.

Noticing my discomfort, sitting with my longings, and observing my awareness helps me realize I’ve created habits of living that crush me. It is not enough to notice the differences; I want and need to find new patterns of grace, new rhythms of listening to my Maker in my body.

When we learn to find comfort in the discomfort of diverse people, our eyes open to the wonder of transformative relationships. When we learn to notice our longing for differently paced internal lives, our bodies open up to the presence of God in spirit, teaching us new ways to be in the world. Give in to this work, appreciating the process of being transformed by God.

A week into Lent, a lot of us feel our hope diminishing. Our discipline might have failed us. Our focus has faltered. Fasting and sacrifice are hard. Limiting our desires and serving others is hard. Daily choosing stillness, solitude and silence are hard. Do not give up just because you feel discomfort. Increase your appetite for uncertainty, and lean in to these practices of stillness, silence and solitude even more. Change might happen slowly, and transformation requires discomfort as you release one way of being in order to embrace a different way of life. Rediscover the presence of your Maker in you, and you will find a greater capacity to embrace and care for yourself and others.

Readings for this week are below.

Week Two: Recovery and freedom are possible

“Silence and solitude are the recovery room for the soul weakened by busyness…In silence and solitude we regain our perspective, or more importantly, God’s perspective. Augustine described it as learning to ‘perform the rhythms of one’s life without getting entangled in them.’ Alone with God in prayerful quiet, the rhythms of life are untangled.”                                                     -Howard Baker 

 “When Jesus liberates the man, he also intends to liberate the community. He intends to set bodies free from suffering and violence…This represents the hopes of oppressed people all over and the hopes of the life of Jesus: freedom to be human, freedom to build life, freedom to love, freedom to work, freedom to create joy.”                                                                                         -Danté Stewart

 “Whatever may be the tensions and stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.”                        -Howard Thurman

3/9 Ps 120:1-2; 121:1-4

3/10 Zeph 3:14-18

3/11 Ps 107:1-9, 19-31

3/12 Daniel 6:25-28; Genesis 28:15

3/13 Matthew 7:24-8:3

3/14 Ecclesiastes 7:5-14

3/15 Ps 130